• Question: Do you believe in God? How does this link in with your work?

    Asked by Zealousy to Chris, Josh, Rebecca, Rob, Susan on 14 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by NICKNACKPADDYWACK, Amen, krazykatie.
    • Photo: Susan Cartwright

      Susan Cartwright answered on 14 Jun 2015:

      I don’t believe in God, no: I don’t see any evidence for an omniscient, omnipotent being with a special interest in humanity, and certainly not for one benignly inclined towards human beings. But this really does not link in with my work: several of my colleagues are committed, Church-going Christians. I think it would be difficult to reconcile a career in science with biblical literalism, but biblical literalism is rare in the UK (for some reason, it seems to be regrettably common in the US). I think my religious colleagues think more along that lines of Galileo (apparently quoting Cardinal Baronio): “the Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”

    • Photo: Rob Temperton

      Rob Temperton answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Hi.

      I do not believe in god and it does not impact my work at all.

      I personally don’t see how I could do what I do and be religious. I would be facing an internal battle where my faith is contradictory to the principles that I believe in. However, this is an entirely personal stance and I know plenty of people that are excellent scientists and do believe in god.

      Having said that, I have never met a scientist with properly hardcore religious beliefs. So I would say that it is possible to be a scientist and believe in god, but I don’t think you can be a scientist and hold “extremist” views: for example that everything in a holy scripture is fact and should be followed to the letter.

      Rob

    • Photo: Rebecca Dewey

      Rebecca Dewey answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      I don’t think that a belief or non-belief in God really affects my work in any way. I think that if there was a God, that they have allowed us to technologically advance to a point where humans are able to diagnose and treat illnesses (and we cause a fair few illnesses ourselves!) and we want to understand more about how our brains and bodies work. Therefore, this hypothetical God shouldn’t be annoyed in any way that we are doing just that. We are not “playing God” by making people better or trying to figure out how things work. Therefore, I don’t see that belief links in any way with my work. I have friends and colleagues who do similar jobs to me and they do believe in God, but I don’t believe in God.

    • Photo: Chris Armstrong

      Chris Armstrong answered on 16 Jun 2015:

      Biig question.

      Overall, no I don’t think I believe in an omniscient being watching over us. But as a good scientist if I see infallible evidence in the other direction I will reconsider my viewpoint.

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